J-pouch Life

Well, this is one of those days that I come here to post and I wish I had a positive, uplifting one for you…perhaps this will turn out to be just that. Today, I was fired from my job because of my inability to come to work regularly because of my disease. Now, [...]

I think we’ve all been at points of struggle with these diseases where we felt hopeless. For most of us, the J Pouch operation gives us our lives back. It gives us an opportunity to live it. It gives us an opportunity to hope.
I have done volunteer work for the Crohn’s and [...]

Not sure what’s going on here, but for the past two years, I’ve had a Crohn’s flare over the New Year’s holiday. Perhaps it’s related to stress from the holidays. Either way, it’s time to make a change. Bahamas next year!
Does anyone else notice this phenomenon? Things are going totally great, then all the [...]

There’s that great line in the bible (or the Byrds song, whichever you prefer), “a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance.”
Prior to my diagnosis of UC and, subsequently, Crohn’s, I was a devoted and passionate dancer.  It was my “thing.”  It was also one [...]

Time to boycott the Plaid Pantry, whatever that is. (Is that like a 7-11?). Reading through posts on the Consumerist weblog, trying to decide if I should subscribe to its RSS feed, I came across this article about a fellow IBD sufferer who was denied access to a bathroom. As a result, she pooped her [...]

So, at every previous job since I’ve had IBD I’ve been very vocal about my disease.  It was practical because I was sick at the time, and when people asked me questions, the advocate in me burst forth!  Since I’ve been in remission and managed to get a job in Portland, OR in this crazy [...]

In a timely fashion to Liz’s post on Lets Just Call it IBD, I just stumbled on this story this morning on the yahoo home page.  Apparently a teenage female had been sick with IBD-related symptoms for many years. The doctors called it IBD, probably colitis. She took tissue from her intestine to her high [...]

After receiving an interesting letter from my new GI yesterday, I’ve found myself in a rather contemplative mood.  I was diagnosed with unquestionable serious UC when I was 16.  The GI who diagnosed me recommended immediate surgery to remove the colon.  I declined, preferring instead to take meds for years and try my hand at [...]

Well, hanging out in my gmail inbox today I noticed this link for a “blog” that promised to beat colitis by using the recommendations of a book. After looking into it further, I discovered many other “blogs” that have exactly the same content pointing to the same or similar books. What a shame. Colitis and [...]